US hospitals triage surgery backlog, need way to restock medical supplies fast, says Xcelrate UDI

Hospitals are ramping up operating room capacity to deal with a backlog of thousands of surgeries.

As blood runs out at some hospitals dealing with pent-up demand, they have another problem. The medical devices for these surgeries and follow-up care? A lot of them are expired or recalled. 

Hospitals need a way to rapidly resupply, to meet the urgent demand for surgeries safely and provide good follow-up care. “The number of recalled medical devices is the highest it has been for two years,” said Joan Melendez, founder at Xcelrate UDI.

“That means as patients are re-entering surgeries, the likelihood that a recalled or expired medical device is sitting on the shelves waiting for them is even higher than usual.”

Why is this happening? Hospitals are struggling to source medical products.

A pause in elective surgeries means less revenue for hospitals, which in turn gives them less money to spend on medical products and devices. At the same time, there’s been a big boost in demand for medical devices.

Fortunately, our tool can help healthcare facilities restock ASAP, using our barcode scanning app and a database that’s already in use in 500+ healthcare facilities across the USA.

“We’re seeing some healthcare facilities finding expired medical devices on a weekly basis,” Joan commented.

“It’s impossible to resume elective surgeries without an incident if the surgeons don’t know their products are 100 percent safe. Our technology does this in real-time.”

The FDA estimates that more than 80,000 people have died due to recalled medical devices over the past decade.

As hospitals focus on catching up on elective surgeries, an efficient and effective way of managing recalled and expired devices needs to be in place to prevent patient harm.

“The pandemic has shed light on the biggest problem the American healthcare system faces: poor data management.

“Using tracking technology, inventory management, and effective communication tools, we can manage the problem of faulty medical products and hopefully avoid this in the future.”